The holiday spirit was still going strong a week ago Tuesday night on Newbury Street. It was the Other Side Café’s annual end-of-the-year party and coworkers and friends were noshing on barbequed steak tips and swilling beer when five members of the band Frank Smith took to the front of room and launched into the jaunty, harmonica-driven “Take All the Things,” the first song from their 2004 album, Burn This House Down (Lonesome). Brett Saiia, who joined the band on banjo soon after last year’s Think Farms (Lonesome) was recorded, was conspicuously missing. “Where’s the banjo?” someone shouted. “He’s throwing up,” frontman Aaron Sinclair replied. With Saiia at home and out of commission, the band focused on their last two discs and played only a few songs from their banjo-heavy forthcoming album, Red on White, which is due in the spring.

After a long break, during which year-end awards were given out to the café’s employees (drummer Drew Roach won the “all-around” honor), the band emerged for a second set looking loose and sounding as such. The crowd proceeded to hoot and holler along with Dirty Holiday frontman Chris Warren when he joined Frank Smith for a rousing rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Sweet Virginia.” The band played a couple of more tunes, including a countrified version of the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” and decided to called it a night.

Two nights later at ZuZu, Dave Vicini — who plays with Sinclair and Frank Smith bassist Dan Burke in the Lot Six — and his new self-described “fake” band/solo vehicle Beat Awfuls made their second-ever appearance. With TL6 laying lower than usual while they await the release of their new Get Baked on Youth Kulture (Plastic), Vicini has taken the opportunity to get some songs out of his system — 18 to be exact. At the show he passed out homemade copies of the new Beat Awfuls “double album” — a full-length called The Fall of Love and the Wild Child EP — a lo-fi tour de force that sees Vicini embarking on blues and country explorations, dubbed-out diversions, sound collage safaris, and everything in between.

His live band — Burke on bass, Warren on lead guitar, and Dirty Holiday’s Tommy James on drums — segued from Spoon-like simplicity to Sonic Youth noise outbursts while Vicini, his guitar high-slung on his tall frame, sang non sequiturs with the same wild-child abandon he displays at Lot Six shows. At one point, in “Go Awaying Staying,” he sang, “Let’s get real/Let’s get fake.” Let’s hope he opts for the former with Beat Awfuls, without letting the Lot Six fall by the wayside.

Auld lang syne It was a sad occasion a week ago Thursday at ZuZu — Frank Smith frontman Aaron Sinclair’s last in a long line of shows at the Central Square bar.

Boston music news: November 24, 2006 One of AARON SINCLAIR ’s bands, the LOT SIX , played their final show a week ago last Thursday. But Sinclair’s one-time solo offshoot, FRANK SMITH , are very much alive and well. Frank Smith, "Time to Cut the Fence" (mp3)

Beneficial pop They were calling it the “Who Stole Baker’s Shit!” benefit, but the mood at T.T. the Bear’s Place in Central Square last Tuesday night was more neighborhood spaghetti supper than riled-up rock show.

Boston music news, February 16, 2007 The Mighty Mighty Bosstones started it with their yearly Yuletide multi-night “Hometown Throwdown,” which ended after 2002. Now Darkbuster have revived the tradition with their “Hometown Throwup,” which in its second year takes over the Abbey Lounge February 18-24.

The Handsome Family Attentive indiephiles and alt-country fans will soon realize that lyrics about tying a captain to a tree and trying hard not to hear his screams could only be the observations of Albuquerque’s husband-and-wife team the Handsome Family.

The Boston hit list It’s hard to believe Black Helicopter were playing out for a good five years before they hit most people’s radar. Taking Flight: Black Helicopter reach a higher plane of rock. By Matt Ashare

WORLDS COLLIDE | February 03, 2009 A week ago Wednesday and Thursday, a curious collection of young scruffy indie kids and older scruffy MIT eggheads converged on the school's Broad Institute for two nights of free music, art, and lecture dubbed "Darkness Visible."

GONE, BABY, GONE | January 09, 2009 Boston bids farewell to one of its brightest spots — the row of six diverse and delectable restaurants on Peterborough Street that were consumed by a four-alarm fire early Tuesday morning.

A FLAIR FOR THE DRAMA | January 09, 2009 "There's not enough hype in the world for Glasvegas," old reliable hypemonger NME recently proclaimed. But that doesn't mean the magazine and the rest of the British music press aren't trying.

FANS CHEER; EARTH WEEPS | August 19, 2008 It’s a bummer that the four-plus hours I spent in my car feeling guilty about barfing loads of carbon into the air is most salient in my mind, because, as always, Radiohead delivered an awe-inspiring show.

LAUGH AT THE END OF THE WORLD | August 19, 2008 The two guys who make up Clawjob have an unnerving tendency to describe something as funny when it’s anything but.